While my luckier companions started to visit the city, I settled myself on the veranda. It was the best place I could have chosen, for even leaving out the people on the Square, the veranda roof sheltered many curious characters. There were dragomans, most of them Greeks or Copts, wearing the fez and a short, braided jacket and full trousers; cavasses richly costumed in oriental fashion, scimetar on the hip, _kandjar_ in the belt, and silver-topped cane in the hand; native servants in white drawers and blue or pink gowns; little negroes, bare-armed and bare-legged, dressed in short tunics striped with brilliant colours; dealers selling kuffiyehs, gandouras, and oriental stuffs manufactured in Lyons, photographic views of Egypt and of Cairo, or pictures of national types,--to say nothing of the travellers themselves, who, having come from all parts of the world, certainly deserved to be looked at. Opposite the hotel, on the other side of the road, stood in the shade of the mimosas the carriages placed at the disposal of the invited guests by the splendid hospitality of the Khedive. An inspector, blind in one eye, with a turban rolled around his head and wearing a long blue caftan, called them up and gave the drivers the orders of the travellers. There also stood the battalion of donkey drivers with their long-eared steeds. I am told that there are no less than eighty thousand donkeys in Cairo. That number does not seem to be exaggerated. There are donkeys at every corner, around every mosque, and in the most deserted places there suddenly appear from behind a wall a donkey driver and a donkey that place themselves at your service. These asses are very pretty, spirited, and bright-tempered; they have not the piteous look and the air of melancholy resignation of the asses of our own country, which are ill fed, beaten, and contemned. You feel that they think as much of themselves as other animals do, and that they are not the whole day long a butt for stupid jokes. Perhaps they are aware that Homer compared Ajax to an ass, a comparison which is ridiculous in the West; and they also remember that one of their ancestors bore Miriam, the Virgin Mother of Issa, under the sycamore of Matarieh. Their coat varies from dark-brown to white, through all the shades of dun and gray. Some have white stars and fetlocks. The handsomest are clipped with ingenious coquetry so as to make around the legs patterns which make them look as if they were wearing open-worked stockings. When they are white, the end of the tail and the mane are dyed with henna. Of course this is only in the case of thorough-bred animals, of the aristocracy of the asinine race, and is not indulged in with the common herd.